Private corrections company with ties to government officials will not get special treatment while Ohio sells five prisons, director says

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A private corrections company with ties to both the governor's office and the corrections department will get no special treatment as Ohio moves to privatize a chunk of its prison system, the corrections department director said Monday.

Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, has pledged to remove himself from Gov. John Kasich's recent proposal to sell five Ohio prisons to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Mohr is a former consultant and managing director for Corrections Corporation of America, a Nashville-based company that is eligible to bid on the state prison contracts once they are made available next month.

The company, which bills itself the leading private-sector provider of corrections services to governments, also hired Kasich's former congressional chief of staff, Donald Thibaut, as a lobbyist in January.

"I will have nothing to do with the selection of those companies," Mohr testified before a House of Representatives panel on Monday. "I did want to make the record clear on that point."

Mohr has no stock, pension or monetary benefit whatsoever with the company, a spokesman for the corrections department later said.

Mohr appeared before the House Finance Committee to explain his department's portion of Kasich's $120 billion all-funds budget proposal. The plan to sell five prisons and allow a private company to operate them was among the significant changes Kasich proposed last week to help offset an $8 billion budget deficit.

The prisons sale is expected to bring in at least $200 million, $50 million of which will pay for operation of the prisons system. Budget Director Tim Keen will decide what to do with the rest of the money from selling the prisons, Mohr said.

Two of the prisons for sale, the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Conneaut and the North Coast Correctional Treatment Facility in Grafton are state-owned and privately managed. The North Central Correctional Institution in Marion, the Grafton Correctional Institution and the Marion Juvenile Correctional Facility, which is vacant, also will be sold and privately operated.

Mohr told the panel he met with the Ohio Ethics Commission to discuss potential conflicts of interest and has authorized his chief of staff, Linda Janes, to lead the privatization effort on his behalf.

Mohr was not required to remove himself from the process because he has no connection to the company, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for the prisons department. Yet Mohr will not participate in the bidding process to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest.

Kasich, a Republican, picked Mohr to run the department in January.

Mohr moved to the private sector in 2005 after an extensive career working for Ohio's prison system. He served as a deputy director for the corrections department for two different administrations. He's also been warden at three Ohio prisons.

Mohr was a managing director for Corrections Corporation of America from 2007 to 2009. The company was a client of his consulting firm, Mohr Correctional Insight, before and after his employment with the company.

Steve Owen, a spokesman for CCA, said Mohr served the company with integrity and he would expect the same in his role as a state department director.

As for hiring Kasich's former congressional chief of staff as a lobbyist, Owen said CCA has long had a lobbyist in Ohio to educate elected officials on the services the company provides. CCA owns and operates a Youngstown facility that houses federal prisoners.

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